Examine a close reading of Excerpts from Amar Jiban with textual references and critical perspectives.
The bildungsroman heroine’s feminism and womanhood distinctly enlightens revolutionary iconoclasticism in this canonical colonial third world cosmos reechoing resonances foreshadowed by the lion of literary and social London, Mary Wollstonecraft’s polemical treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Unladylike pursuits overwhelms diabolical fretters of patriarchy and misogyny into obscuration and oblivion through overarching radical free thinking intellectualism pioneered by the foundational wave of feminism and advocacy of womens’ rights movement. Dethroning the quintessence of manhood from the legacy of thronedom and the exilic banishment of masculinity creeps as gothic macabre to androgynous imperialism. Commodification of women as reproductive machinery is the penultimate masculinist subjectivity of the object of male gaze, viewing womanhood and femininity through the polarizing lens of fetishization and/or voyeurism.
Manhood cannot penetrate into the kingdom of womanhood being a stingless bee drudge and thus cease into the brink of annihilation. As a cornerstone and milestone of women writing, autobiographical excerpts from Amar Jiban, chronicles the opportunity of education; ushering emancipation and liberation of femininity and womanhood from being entangled and mired by subservience and servitude within the hearths and parlours of the domesticity and/or domicile. Responsibilities and obligations ought to be performed as a coalition of egalitarian fraternity and gendered pluralistic solidarity. Women possess their freedom and liberty vis a-vis men and thus the otherization of gender stereotyping shouldn’t relegate them through subjugation and subordination, subservience, servitude and servility.
Entitlement to their feminist identity bears testimony of individuality which must be preserved even after wifedom and maternity. Stagnation of a conservative microcosmic milieu inextricably, nonetheless handicaps this female empowerment phenomenon into the quagmire of dormancy. Bolstering economic independence of training female workforce and contraceptive pills for preventive birth control measure policies in case of incessant bondage of child-bearing were to be fought in the then contemporary reactionary revolution.
Oftentimes women are perennially perpetrated into the rigidities of flesh trade for the sustenance of her soul as relevant still today. Overwork from overtime work at night and wage inequality underpay status quo exacerbate inhumane working conditions chilled by cold and exhausted by heat, subjected to the perils of unguarded machineries and poisonous fumes. Then the leisure and pleasure of married life’s housekeeping and homemaking, unfortunately strikes catastrophic consequences of fatalistic dowry and/or widowhood.
Advancing intellectual professionalism of females visavis the progressive career orientated educated males is inevitable for the companionship furthering continuity of the human race. Observant and sensible daughters, affectionate and empathetic sisters, faithful and chaste wives and reasonable and tenderhearted mothers idolizes womanhood and femininity which the author lionized through the characters and settings of her novel that alludes to Vindication of the Rights of Women: idiolect of feminism: “I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves” and “it is not empires, but equality and friendship which women want” through exerting womanliness in context of truth, freedom, education, wealth, experience and knowledge of life.
“One of the philosophizing serpents that we have in our bosom” and “hyena in petticoats” alludes to the then contemporary anti feminist perspectives in view of gynocentric transgressions. However, holistic betterment of mankind essentializes the vis a-vis coexistence of manhood and womanhood as an egalitarian ethos and thus womanliness is not enmeshed within subjection of objectivity and fragmentation of selfhood. Material, financial, intellectual and emotional bursaries prolifically transform feminine empowered individuals to prosper and progress whether the public discourse of political philosophy or the private discourse of domesticity.
Rassundari Devi’s prose narrative is the embodiment of persistently tenacious girlhood, maidenhood, womanhood transcending the recalcitrant barriers of patriarchy’s misogynist locked room adversities. Her bold rage and fiery temper are shrewd and poignant to subvert the enslavement of housewives as reflected in these rhetorics: “Is this my fate because I am a woman? … Just because I am a woman does it necessarily mean that trying to educate myself is a crime?” To Rassundari Devi’s histrionic protest, bondage and imprisonment forthrightly laments powerlessness and captivity of womankind.
Misfortunes of widowhood furthermore exacerbates the drudgery of existentialism in case of women like her as vindictive in the prolific denunciation of widowhood: “Toward the end of my life I have been widowed. I feel ashamed and hurt by the realization that even if a woman has lived her life fully, has brought up her children and lives behind her sons and daughters to carry on, her widowhood is still considered a misfortune.” Rassundari Devi inexplicitly abolishes conservative widowhood custom to eradicate funebrial crisis associated with survival instincts of women’s individuality.
Predicament of womenfolk always coerces womankind and relegates them to the status of a caged bird or fish caught in a net. The protagonist is grief stricken and frozen hearted as epitomized by the state of an elegiac plaintiff; who has been engulfed by the blazing forest until Lord of the Heavens’ celestial grace bestows “womenfolk to get together and study books”.
Further Reading, References and Endnotes
Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jiban: Challenging the Norms, Dr. Ritambhara, Notions, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 1-6
Feminism and the Economic Independence of Woman, Guoin Griffis Johnson, The Journal of Social Forces, May 1925, Volume. 3, No. 4, pp. 612-616, Oxford Journals.
Chapter Title: Introduction to Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1891 New edition, London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd, 2-30, Book Title: Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Book Subtitle: Selected writings, Book Editor(s): Melissa Terras, Elizabeth Crawford, Published by: UCL Press. (2022)
Chapter Title: Style as Noise: Identity and Ideology in A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, Book Title: Feminist Theory, Women’s Writing, Book Author(s): Laurie A. Finke
,Published by: Cornell University Press, pp. 1-41.
Reconceptualizing Gender, Phule, Brahminism and Brahminical Patriarchy, Uma Chakravarti
Rassundari Devi Amar Jiban pp. 1-13